One ferry , 3 buses, 2 cabs and a decent walk all equating to 30 hours travel time entirely to our destination in central Argentina - Cordoba.
Betts (from charleston) had told me abit about cordoba saying it was a highlight for him after spending a day dove hunting in the mountains. After some enquiries by Tom we realized quickly it was more than likely going to be out of our league given it was $600 USD per person for the day.
After having a little walk to the main mall myself and the kiwi brothers decided to suss out a gym. Ghetto little place crammed with locals was more than enough to get a bit of a pump happening. I had a great work out and found myself spotting some local guys and counting reps in Spanish.
Heading back to the hostel for a shower I met to Aussie girls from Adelaide. Unbeknown to me that'd I'd already met them on multiple occasions in buenos Aries. Elise and Rosie were really cool chicks; the boys and I had dinner with them that night and went to a few bars and clubs afterwards with some other local girls we met. Fun night until our return to the hostel saw DC and Matty's 'brotherly love' boil over resulting in a fierce mellay. I did my best to intervene and stop anything happening but it got to the put where they were so determined to rip each others heads off that I walk outside and closed the door behind me- "its not my problem" , I thought. Re-entering the room a few minutes later saw the two still trading blows and a nice spray of blood that was now coating 3 of the 4 walls. Finally separating the two and pleading with a hostel worker not to call the policia I left the two morons to clean up there dirty work and sort out their lovers tiff. I spent the night on a spare bunk in Elise and Rosie's room. We were up at a reasonable time for breakfast and hit the city for a couple hours of exploration. Finally met the boys late in the afternoon and it wasn't until they'd had a few beers that we brought up the previous nights episode. It was all cool despite the inch long gash down the side of DCs nose.
Had a reasonably quite one because I'd booked in for a day out in the bush horse riding with the girls.
After an hour long bus ride we arrived at our place of pick-up where a lovely Argentinian woman and her young daughter took us to the ranch. Such an amazing location. We met the owner and some of his friends and family before we were ushered onto our steeds. There wasn't much of a tutorial before we were trotting along. The tour seemed very impromptu as we had 4 different guides that just came and went as they pleased. Taking us through some very dense scrub and up to done nice viewing points. On the way back my confidence on the horse was starting to increase and managed to get it up to a full gallop! The first time flying off in a Zoro like fashion and nearby coming unstuck for efforts. Managed to control it and arrive back at the ranch with nothing more than a sore arse.
We got back to the owner cooking us an amazing Asado (Argentinian BBQ) with the other family and friends. We fined out side under a huge tree on various cuts of meat, bread, salad and of course red wine. One of the friends was an English teacher and was helping me along with the others in improving my Spanish; I thoroughly enjoyed the lunch and was very thankful to be able to be accommodated so well by the family and owner. After polishing off a few bottles of red then a cup or two of 'Maté' (very traditional Argentinian herbal tea) we were ready to go watch a polo match. How the spectators sat and watched on the trays of utes or pulled out picnic chairs wasn't dissimilar to watching finals footy back at sutho oval. A few well manicured fields cut out in the middle of a another ranch style property was the afternoons arena. We watched two games and the owner who took us to the game said he would speak to one of his nephews to get us a lift back into town. The sun was starting to set and it was getting pretty cold. We had to stick around and watch the match day presentation which turned into a few drinks which turned into dinner which turned into still be at the polo fields partying with the players and clubs people until around 1.30am. Chandon flowing and some pumping tunes mixed well with a star filled sky like no other. Such a fun night, was super stoked to have got to have such an authentic experience.
When it came time to leave I was a little puzzled when I found out we were actually staying the night at one of players houses thanks to Rosie and Elise sucking face with some sleazy polo dudes. They were nice enough guys and his house was sick. He dropped us to the bus station and we headed back into town.
The kiwi boys were checking out and had met back up with Tom from BA. After waiting around with the girls to hear back from some potential farm work were hoping to get I decided to check out with the lads too and book a night bus to Mendoza. I didn't want to wait around in cordoba if this work wasn't going to come off... Pretty sure I made the right call.
All in all felt as though I milked cordoba for everything it was worth- a definite highlight so far!